


Fan Mail

by Lady_Therion



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle is Hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6876973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Therion/pseuds/Lady_Therion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabelle French is a bestselling children’s author who hasn’t written a single word since her mother’s death. While grieving, she receives a letter from a young Bae Gold, who claims to be her biggest fan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fan Mail

* * *

 

 

“Do you still have trouble sleeping?”

Belle sinks further into Dr. Hopper’s Chesterfield sofa. Its tufted brown leather sticking to the backs of her knees. Dr. Hopper, or “Archie” as he prefers to be called, sits opposite on a matching armchair. Though it’s still the height of summer, the room is filled with the low crackle of kindling from a cheery fireplace. She suspects its purpose is meant to soothe.

She is disappointed to be immune to it.

“On and off,” she says finally. “Sometimes I feel like I go days without sleeping a wink. Other times I feel like I’ve been sleeping for years.”  

“How many hours would you say you get on average?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Maybe two, three hours at a time on bad days. Twelve, sixteen or more on really bad days.”

Archie nods. “And how would you describe a really bad day?”  

She eyes the antique clock on the mantlepiece. Barely a half hour has passed and already she wishes she cancelled. But Dr. Hopper—Archie—has come highly recommended by her agent. And given that she’s already cycled through four well-meaning therapists already....

“Belle?”

She wants to answer. Yet she doesn’t. Thinking about her bad days requires prodding the overwrought canals of her overtired brain. Thoughts come to her in half-developed polaroids. Blank pages. Broken pens. Bottles of medicine. Bleak afternoons. Black mirrors.

These are only just the surface.

By the time she can form words, she has already forgotten the question. “Sorry,” she says, pinching her eyes shut, the angry buzz of a migraine making itself known. “I guess I’m just really distracted.”

“No need to apologize,” says Archie, and it seems like he means it. “What you’re feeling is very common.”

“Oh, is it now?” She hates the prick of irritability in her voice. She wants to say things, ungrateful and contemptible things that have nothing to do with this open and earnest man, which grate and grate and grate like a mouthful of needles. Instead she swallows it down and sucks in a deep breath. “Sorry...I just...I don’t know why I get so easily upset.”

“It’s all right to feel that way too, you know,” says Archie.

“No it’s not,” she says, so sharply he flinches. In the few sessions they had, she’s never once raised her voice. It shocks her, but strangely vindicates her at the same time. She feels awake. “You keep bloody saying that and it just makes me  _even more_ upset.”

“Belle…”

She raises a hand. “I don’t think you understand how out of control I get. Either I feel everything at once or I don’t feel anything at all. I don’t know which is worse. And here you are, sitting in your cozy, posh office, telling me that these awful feelings are _all right_. Well, I’m not paying you to tell me that it’s all right. I’m paying you tell me what’s wrong with me so that I can fix it!”

Her breath comes out in rapid bursts. It is the most she has ever said to him, the most nerves she has ever exposed. Her irritation spent, she is a thousand shades embarrassed and cannot meet his eye.

“Belle...think of grief like a physical trauma.”

She raises her eyes to him them, forlorn.

He leans closer to her, so that his tie drapes over the smooth mahogany of the coffee table between them. “You lost someone very important to you. You are wounded. Recovery takes time. There is no ‘normal’ course for what that process will be for you.” When she didn’t say anything, he leans in closer. “You are far too hard on yourself.”

Belle feels the telltale prickling on the back of her eyelids, and takes in a another deep shuddering breath. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I feel so...stupid. Normally I’d be able to...write myself out of a funk. But now the words...”

All her words have disappeared. Vanished into thin air.

“Have you tried to write about your feelings recently?” He gives a sly grin. “You could consider writing an angry letter to me...”

“I… I tried to write the other day,” she says with extreme reluctance, as though confessing to a murder. “It felt all wrong. My agent’s really worried. I screwed up a lot of deadlines with production. I think the only reason why my publisher hasn’t dropped me is because of my _brand_.” She hisses the last bit with scorn.

“Before your mother’s death,” and here Belle flinches at Archie’s words, “What did writing feel like?

Belle fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “Like running. Like breathing. Like life. Like there was nothing easier or harder. It was a part of me, you know.”

“ _Was_ a part of you?”

“Well that’s just it. I feel like I’ve forgotten how. Like I’ve been blinded. Or like I’m missing an arm. A leg. A heart. I feel very lost...and very alone.”

There isn’t enough in her to cry full on, which only adds another layer of self-loathing on her part. Though Archie doesn’t comment on her despondency, she thinks he knows enough to understand. Because not long after, he makes her a spot of tea.

An hour later, Belle leaves his office with the promise to come at the same time next week and a note for some herbal sleeping remedies.

“I’m hesitant to prescribe any kind of medication,” says Archie. “At this point, I think they would do more harm than good. Try these first. If they don’t work out, give me a ring. We’ll figure something out.”

Belle doesn’t have words— _the_ _words_ —to properly express her gratitude. So she just says goodbye.

*******

Coming back to a too big and too empty house isn’t exactly what Belle would classify as a fun Friday night. But there were only so many hours she can spend driving in aimless circles around the tourist hotspots before calling it a day. Surrounding herself with shining, happy people only makes her feel more alone, and she pays for her resentment with ugly, black and vacant emotions.

She pulls up to the Green Gable, her mother’s nickname for the rustic lake house Belle lived in since her career “took off.” Although very much secluded from the other houses, there would always be an occasional tour boat passing by in the distance. Their upbeat guides mentioning how Green Gable was, “home to internationally famous children’s author, Isabelle French.”

Nowadays, Belle makes sure to avoid the tour times.

She opens up her mailbox and sees the usual. Bills. Coupons. Credit card statements. But buried beneath them all is something else that captures her attention. A rather thick envelope, bright with watercolor drawings, and a carefully scrawled address from Maine. What stuns her are the drawings...which are exactly how she imagines the creatures from her book series to look like. Centaurs, fairies, ogres and elves...

Feeling a familiar yet unfamiliar surge of purposefulness, she dashes inside the house to open the letter on her kitchen aisle.

_Dear Ms. French—_

_My name is Bae Gold. I never wrote to an author before. I hope you like this letter. You must get letters like this all the time. My Papa got me the ‘_ Her Handsome Hero’ _series for my tenth birthday. I don’t like reading, but I read all your books twice. I can’t wait for The Tenth Tale!_

_I like your hero. A lot of boys in my school think the book is "too girly" because she's a girl knight. But I think that’s really stupid (I hope you're okay with that word, it bugs my Papa). I don’t know if this letter will ever reach you...I know it’s been a long time since the last book. I read in the news that your mom passed away and I just wanted to say I’m sorry. My Mama isn't with our family too. But she hasn’t passed away._

_I wanted to tell you this so that you won’t feel all alone...Your stories mean the world to me, but I just had to know that you are happy and all right._

_I hope you like my drawings too. I’ve been practicing!_

_All my best,_

_-Bae Gold_

Belle reads the letter twice, three times, then four. Each reading somehow melting an icy layer around her heart.

Before her mother’s death, letters like Bae’s came in droves. Her mailbox would be overstuffed by bags and bags of it. Drawings, videos, quilts. Her young fans had countless ways of creative expression and their dedication overwhelmed her. She had an entire room full of their their gifts alone.

But in the long months since then, she could no longer visit that room without being swallowed by their expectations. Failure and disappointment choked her each time she walked past it. Eventually, the letters stopped. Even worse, when the publication date of her next book was cancelled, she received a few more letters that made it very clear how many hearts she’d broken.

She doesn’t know this Bae. But his words kindle something in her, something she cannot yet identify but knows is important. Vital to herself.

She lingers on the words ‘ _My Mama isn't with our family too’_ and wonders if Bae’s parents are divorced? Even so, he knows what it's like to be alone and afraid. And more importantly, he reached out to her hoping to give her—a complete stranger—some form of comfort.

So with great trepidation, she plucks up what little courage she has left to do what she hasn’t done in a very long time.

She writes.

_Dear Bae—_

_You can call me Belle. And yes, your letter reached me! I was feeling very sad for a very long time. But your letter made me feel better. I’m glad you liked my books. It’s very kind of your Papa to get you the whole series as a gift!_ Her Handsome Hero _was my favorite series to write. I based it off the stories that my mother would tell me as a child. So those books will always be very close to my heart._

_-Belle French_

She pauses, pen hovering above the stationary, then adds…

_PS. Feel free to write me again._

After she seals the letter, she grabs her ink pots and gives Bae a little color drawing of her own: Colette, the Wise Knight in all her shining glory, right on the back of the envelope.

She mails it off at once.

And though she goes to bed that night with all her uneasy feelings tying her up in knots, she finally manages to sleep...chasing elusive dreams where her mother calls for her in the distance.


End file.
